Utah fails to pass bill to jump ahead of Iowa in presidential contest

Utah lawmakers were unsuccessful in their effort to push their state to the front of the presidential selection process.

Iowa holds the spotlight every four years as presidential hopefuls pour into the state to audition for the White House, trailed by the national press. No other state votes before the Iowa caucuses.

A proposal that would have required Utah to hold the first presidential voting contest in the country, and for voting would take place online, didn’t make the cut last night.

Earlier this week, the Utah House overwhelmingly approved HB410 and sent it to the state Senate for further consideration. But records show it never came up for a Senate vote. It got stuck in a logjam of bills that were defeated when the legislature adjourned at midnight, as required by the state constitution.

“I don’t like the idea that Iowa and New Hampshire matter more than everybody else,” the bill’s sponsor, Utah state Rep. Jon Cox, told The Des Moines Register in a telephone interview this morning.

“I think we have a system that does create second class states,” said Cox, a Republican. “I’m not saying that Utah should be permanently first in the nation, but I really think I’d like to see the national parties engage in a conversation about a more equitable approach to the nominating process. And the only way that can occur if somebody actually beats out Iowa and New Hampshire and goes first.”

National GOP leaders have set rules that punish states who leapfrog ahead of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada on the presidential voting calendar. If Utah had set its contest first, the national party would have cut the number of delegates Utah can send to the national GOP convention from 40 to nine.

“New Hampshire gets 12 delegates,” Cox said this morning. “Their 12 matters a lot more than our 40, so for us to go to nine, that’s not much of a penalty at all.”

In the Utah bill, Cox used the same language as Iowa law that requires Iowa to be first in the nation.

Utah state statute currently allows for residents to cast votes for their preferred presidential candidate in June during the regular primary, or, if the legislature approves the money, to hold voting earlier in the year during the regional Western States Presidential Primary. Voting on a separate day from the regular primary costs about $3.5 million, Cox said.

Cox wanted a third option: Online voting, at the front of the pack, with the nation’s attention on Utah.

Utah already has some online voting – that’s how overseas military personnel cast their ballots, he noted. “That could be a blueprint for us or another state for us to become the first in the nation primary,” he said.

“Other states have tried to move ahead, but you guys are batting a thousand there, you guys and New Hampshire.”

Cox said he doesn’t think Utah’s bill is a dead issue. “I think it’s something we would re-engage possibly in 2015,” he said.